1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to monitoring the activity of a user of a data network, such as the Internet.
2. Description Of Related Art
Online services today offer a variety of services to their users. Users may access news, weather, financial, sports, and entertainment services, participate in and retrieve information from online discussion groups, and send and receive email. A user of an online service typically accesses the service using specialized communication software (i.e., client application or client software) that establishes and manages a connection from the user""s computer (or client) to the service provider""s host computers (or servers) and facilitates the user""s interactions with the service.
In addition to managing the connection, there is provided software to display pages or screens relating to retrieved content according to views or presentations specific to the online service. This software may be integrated with the client application. The functionality of the content and the user interface (i.e., icons, dialog boxes, menus, etc.) for interacting with the content are typically dictated by various standards.
Interactions between the user""s computer and the service are facilitated by a variety of software protocols (i.e., communication conventions, rules and structures), including application level protocols, for managing the transfer of data across the network and to the client application on the user""s computer. A protocol may be proprietary or exclusive to a service such that only client software from the service provider may be used to communicate with the server software. For example, an online service that supports electronic mail, discussion groups, chat groups, news services, etc. may define and use specific protocols for each type of service so that appropriate information is exchanged between the participants (i.e., clients and servers). Each application-specific protocol may be based on a common, underlying protocol.
The Internet and World Wide Web (xe2x80x9cWebxe2x80x9d), comprised of a vast array of international computer networks, provide online service users with considerable information resources and other content. Typically, this content is accessed using a web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, capable of understanding the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) used to create the documents found on the Web and the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) used to navigate the Web. Email and Usenet discussion groups are typically accessed through companion software to the browser. Although web browsers typically have varying levels of functionality or sophistication, retrieved content is displayed in content pages according to views or presentations specific to the web document currently presented by the web browser. Typically, the views and presentations are different than those provided by the communication software from the online service because the web browser is, in fact, a separate client application displaying web documents containing presentation directives.
When using a browser, the browser issues HTTP messages to request web pages. A requested web page is typically identified using its URLxe2x80x94uniform resource locator. The URL is a reference (or address) to a resource available on a TCP/IP network such as the Internet. A URL is composed of a character string, and may have a number of parts. These parts include a top level domain name, second level domain name, directory name, and file name. URLs may identify a file located on a web server. URLs may also point to other resources on the network such as database queries and command output. The determination and use of URLs is well known in the art and is not discussed further herein.
In some portions of this disclosure, the term xe2x80x9cresource locatorxe2x80x9d is used. The term is defined as a string or code which uniquely identifies a resource on a network. Thus, the URL is a species of resource locator.
There are a number of ways that a user can connect to the Internet. First, a user can subscribe to a proprietary on-line network, such as, for example, America Online. Second, a user can subscribe to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). In any case, users typically connect to the Internet using a computer with a communications device such as an analog modem, an Ethernet adapter, DSL adapter or cable modem. Such connections may be analog or digital, dial-up or constantly-connected. Subscribers typically pay a fee for their subscriptions to proprietary non-line networks and ISPs. These fees typically are in the form of a sign-up fee, plus on-line charges which are fixed (i.e., unlimited monthly access for a fixed fee) or based upon the amount of time the user is connected. The fees generally increase with bandwidth.
On-line and Internet content and service providers often derive revenue by displaying advertisements to users. For example, when a user accesses a web page on the Web, an advertisement may be displayed to the user as part of the web page. Advertisements are also shown to users of some proprietary on-line services. Often in such systems, each user accessing a certain screen or site is shown the same advertisement. Sophisticated systems have the capability to change the advertisement after a certain period of time.
Advertisers find it desirable to target advertisements to relevant potential customers. For example, an advertiser of stockings would prefer to target women rather than men with its advertising. A Boston restaurant would prefer to target residents of Boston and business travelers rather than children living in San Francisco. Moreover, advertisers prefer to pay for advertising based upon the number of relevant consumers who are actually exposed to the advertisement. For typical on-line systems and networks, including the Web, it is often difficult for an advertiser to precisely determine whether its advertisements were actually viewed by a user and for how long, and whether the advertisement induced a response. Accordingly, there exists a need for a targeted advertisement system that also can provide information as to the characteristics of those who were exposed to each advertisement, for how long the user was exposed, and at what times.
In accordance with the present invention, the on-line activities of an on-line user are monitored and stored. Information regarding the user""s activities are used as a basis for targeting advertisements to the user. Monitoring is performed by a client monitoring application, which performs monitoring without intruding on the user""s activities.
According to one aspect of the invention, URLs in the address bar of the browser application are obtained by the client monitoring application. According to a second aspect of the invention, the stream of URLs transmitted by the browser application are obtained by the client monitoring application. According to a third aspect of the invention, information in displayed web pages is obtained by the client monitoring application.
Still further objects and advantages attaching to the system and to its use and operation will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the following particular description.